Ferran Adria is today the well-known leader in world cuisine. Fusion, experimentation, provocation... gastronomes contest the best term to qualify Ferran Adria's cuisine that is above all creative. When the appetite for knowledge nourishes a talent, When technology uses artistic intuition. Ferran Adria yearns for scientific knowledge to be able to go beyond the limits of food culture - and he has done everything to achieve his objective to the point of creating controversy. This film is an intriguing journey into a universe that combines inventiveness and research. We go behind the scenes of one of the most highly prized restaurants and of the very first workshop of culinary research in the world. The restaurant El Bulli opens only six months of the year. The remaining six months, chemists and cooks work together and devote their time to a multitude of methodical studies on products to create 140 new recipes for a menu that is entirely renewed each year. We are privileged to witness this amazing culinary feat that builds bridges between pleasure and taste, and knowledge.
A self-taught chef, Heston Blumenthal's route to the top has been an unconventional one, involving rule-breaking and unusual experiments. He is the chef and owner of The Fat Duck, a three-Michelin-starred restaurant in Berkshire, and voted best restaurant in the world by Restaurant magazine in 2005. Blumenthal is famous for his scientific approach and has been described as a culinary alchemist for his innovative style of cooking. British culture is one of the most audacious when it comes to experimenting with new kinds of food and the idea of a science of gastronomy has indeed found its master in England. Heston Blumenthal is the greatest culinary researcher in all fields. Besides his ability to change food into a delight of the senses, Heston Blumenthal uses the power of suggestiveness to direct the ability of the brain to determine taste. He wants to take by surprise our senses of taste and of sight, and to influence our brain with sounds and smells. Nevertheless, Heston Blumenthal reveals to us that scientific research can go hand in hand with art and that he does not feed us technical preparations. He says that he wants to satisfy his customers' minds, hearts and taste-buds.
Born into a family of multi-star restaurant owners, Pierre Gagnaire obeys only to one rule: taste - the very stake of the art of cooking. A searcher of new tastes, he works with Hervé This, the world specialist of molecular gastronomy. This is the story of an unlikely but fruitful partnership between high gastronomy and science. With a common passion for cooking, the artist and cook Pierre Gagnaire and the physico-chemist Hervé This have found the recipe for bringing out the best flavours from this disturbing combination. Throughout the film we are caught up in this creative energy, and we enjoy with Pierre and Hervé their common passion for reinventing cooking. At last we are given the secrets of this alchemy: in front of us, we see science giving the artist a new kind of independence that encourages him to create. Pierre Gagnaire's and Hervé This' project is simple and ambitious: to combine science and cooking just for the love of it.
